Microsoft/Crytek=DX10.1 IS N0T IMPORTANT!

[knowledge123]

NVIDIA for the win

Pity about their drivers, eh ? I do wish they'd stop with all the beta driver hype nonsense and concentrate on getting stable complete releases out.

On topic/ Oh well, I'll wait to see what ati and other developers say.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

well ati deserves this, with their lack of driver support too. hiding behind a 1 driver a month release where nvidia work hard for the money with game makers and pull out multiple beta drivers a month.
its just the money from amd now which is keeping ati alive, if they were on thier own ati would have suffered far worse by now.

as for dx10.1 not much use since dx10 has not been used properly yet.

im still waiting for that 6 fold speed increase in crysis going from dx9 to dx10 that microsoft promised.

 

[sunlitsix]

Pity about their drivers, eh ? I do wish they'd stop with all the beta driver hype nonsense and concentrate on getting stable complete releases out.

a lot of people dont mind beta drivers, if theres a performance increase there then everyone goes and downloads them

 

[knowledge123]

a lot of people dont mind beta drivers, if theres a performance increase there then everyone goes and downloads them

Double edged sword, tbh, as you get two groups; one saying "I have a performance increase" and the other saying the polar opposite.

well ati deserves this, with their lack of driver support too. hiding behind a 1 driver a month release where nvidia work hard for the money with game makers and pull out multiple beta drivers a month.

Not really, their support service is actually very good. At the end of the day you can't support every product forever, and seen as ATI is much smaller than nVidia, I think they do a top job of it.

 

[Uriel]

Fair enough, they may say that 10.1 isn't important but these things are never implemented immediately. Reminds me of ATi saying 9.0c wasn't important but I guess Bioshock forced a lot of Xxx0 series ownerrs to upgrade a bit sooner than they'd have liked.

 

[Subtlesnake]

**** sake, ati actually run by the book and conform to the new standards, and then MS kick them in the balls for a 2nd time. First with them dropping the dx10 virtual memory tech from the spec because Nvidia are unable to get it working properly, now with them saying 10.1 isn't even needed. Is MS getting payments from Nvidia or something because this is a complete joke.

Nvidia used to be the company pushes the boundaries not the one holding it back.

Matthew

Don't believe what you read on the Inquirer. Virtualization is supported as part of the new driver model, so works fine with Direct3D 9Ex (the version of DirectX 9 for Vista.

"WDDM now allows for "virtualized" video memory. Virtualization abstracts video memory so that it is no longer necessary to think about creating a resource in either video or system memory. Just specify what the resource is going to be used for and the system will place the memory in the best place possible. Additionally, virtualization allows for the allocation of more memory than actually exists on the hardware. Memory is then paged into the correct hardware as needed.

WDDM now provides a GPU memory manager and scheduler that allow multiple applications access to the GPU simultaneously. Because Direct3D applications no longer require exclusive access to the GPU it is possible to switch focus between applications with little penalty. Under WDDM Direct3D devices are only lost during driver upgrades, physical removal of the device, GPU reset and unexpected errors."

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa663366.aspx

"The Direct3D 9Ex interface provides access to a slight extension of the standard Direct3D 9 API that exposes the virtualized resource allocation, new lost device semantics, and some other new features available while running on Windows Vista."

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb173477.aspx

And no MS aren't saying that DirectX 10.1 isn't needed (otherwise why would they have released it?), just that it's an incremental update, that it will take a while for developers to take advantage of. Would you prefer that they lied instead?

 

[Cyber-Mav]

Double edged sword, tbh, as you get two groups; one saying "I have a performance increase" and the other saying the polar opposite.


Not really, their support service is actually very good. At the end of the day you can't support every product forever, and seen as ATI is much smaller than nVidia, I think they do a top job of it.

agreed that ati is the smaller company, and as such it shows in thier lack of support and non competitive on performance products. guess the money you save getting a ati card over an nvidia one will come back and slap you in the face further down the line. iv learnt that the hard way and will steer clear of ati in the future.

 

[knowledge123]

agreed that ati is the smaller company, and as such it shows in thier lack of support and non competitive on performance products. guess the money you save getting a ati card over an nvidia one will come back and slap you in the face further down the line. iv learnt that the hard way and will steer clear of ati in the future.

Say what you want about them, they have delivered some stellar products in the past, and whilst, I agree, their current phase may not the best, I'm hopeful that they can get back on the ball sooner rather than later.

 

[Tute]

Who in their right mind would buy a card for it's DirectX version anyway? If the 3870 sells it'll be because it's price to performance ratio is good, not because it can render games "slightly" better.

 

[gareth170]

And no MS aren't saying that DirectX 10.1 isn't needed (otherwise why would they have released it?), just that it's an incremental update, that it will take a while for developers to take advantage of. Would you prefer that they lied instead?

tbh i would prefer the card to perform much better and fixed all the little problems than to have dx10.1

 

[Blackout]

the less power , heat and price is great . but the performance isn't great..

I agree with Gareth170.

In fact it is the power, heat and noise improvements that have led me to look at the 3870. If the price/performance ratio is good as well then I am going to buy (well...actually already have on order as it fits all the above for me).

I honestly dont care much about having the absolute fastest thing on the planet, that's not my objective at all. So AMD/ATI producing this card is going to be a hit with many (just not the ones that desire the absolute fastest) and that is absolutely fine, surely.

I applaud AMD/ATI for making a card with reasonable performance, noise and power req's at a good price (with the potential to upgrade nicely with xfire if needed!).

EDIT: Not fussed about the 10.1 support at all (that's just an added - questionable - bonus)

 

[chrissss]

I think it's more a kick in the teeth for fanATIcs. They all said they waited for the new ATI cards, because of DX10.1 now they cant say this anymore.

still not a major kick in the teeth, not worse than the Nvidia drivers using cheats tbh

 

[Scougar]

Its a kick in the teeth/nuts/whatever, because you would assume that MS actually WANT support for their DX API. It's certainly not gonna help ati/amd share prices when MS say crap like that.

MS: Great new product, really improves things
ATI: Sure we'll try to implement that into our latest hardware
MS (After ati implement): Bah, it isn't really worth anything, why bother 'just yet'?
NVIDIA: lol.. we saved money on research.

I actually really like Nvidia products, I find there implementation smoother with less fuss. ATI I would like to be good (and yes I like the underdog) but you know the rest...

EDIT@ also bear in mind that crytek are mainly supported by Nvidia, hence why they won't even be bothering with 10.1 'yet'.

I also wonder how near the 'near future' is the MS guy refers to?

Matthew